49ers’ Harbaugh gets a bit starstruck

In July, Gen. Martin Dempsey, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, visited Santa Clara and addressed the 49ers.

On Sunday night, actors Vince Vaughn and Owen Wilson were on the team’s sideline and joined the 49ers in their celebratory locker room after a win over the Lions.

Now, those men are great and all, but Jim Harbaugh is holding out hope two other notable figures will visit his team: Muhammad Ali and Willie Mays.

Perhaps you’ve heard of them?

“We’ve been working on it,” the head coach said of connecting with Mays. “I don’t want anything from him. I just want to go up to him and shake his hand and tell him that me and my dad think he’s the greatest baseball player in the history of the game. That’s all I really want to do. Some day I will, hopefully.”

The same goes for Ali, who Harbaugh said is viewed in his family “as the greatest sports competitor this world has ever known.”

On Monday, Harbaugh’s news conference strayed from typical topics after he was asked about inspirational Ali stories he shared with the 49ers last week. The stories were relayed by Harbaugh’s dad, Jack, who had a chance to meet Ali and his wife.

Harbaugh embraces opportunities to expose his team to accomplished figures.

U.S. Marine Corps Col. Jim Minick, a friend of Harbaugh, has met with the 49ers. In November, Harbaugh had Sgt. Dontae Skywalker join his team on the sideline during road games against the Redskins and Ravens. Skywalker is relief commander at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier at Arlington National Cemetery.

Wilson, in the Bay Area with Vaughn to film a movie, contacted the 49ers about attending a game and “we were just thrilled that he would want to do that,” Harbaugh said.

Vaughn and Wilson wore 49ers gear and took part in the team’s who’s-got-it-better-than-us? postgame cheer.

“It’s just been kind of our culture, we like being around those kind of guys whether it’s a Navy SEAL whose name we can’t mention, or Col. Jim Minick of the United States Marine Corps, or Gen. Dempsey, Sgt. Skywalker,” Harbaugh said. “We like being around those kind of extraordinary kind of guys.”

When stars collide: How did Detroit wide receiver Calvin Johnson respond after absorbing a huge blow from Patrick Willis? The 49ers’ inside linebacker dropped Johnson at the end of a 4-yard catch in the second quarter Sunday night.

“I remember him getting up and being like ‘Whoa, OK, all right, OK,’ ” Willis said. “So I know he felt it a little bit.”

Johnson’s version was similar: “He rung the bell pretty good on that one,” he said.